Press Release

December 5, 2016

Appeal of Mecklenburg Election Protest filed with State Board

Failure to conduct required audit of voting machines alleged
Charlotte, NCA protest appeal was filed with the North Carolina State Board of
Elections late Sunday concerning Mecklenburg Countys failure to conduct the postelection audit as required by state election laws. Marilyn Marks of Charlotte filed the
protest on November 18 stating that the touchscreen voting machine-recorded votes
were not sample-checked against the paper tapes that voters confirm during voting.
The legally required sample checks are intended to test the accuracy of the votes
recorded in the machine.
The Mecklenburg Board discussed Markss protest during its November 18, 21 and 28th
meetings, before dismissing the protest. The controversy involves the legal requirement
to compare the electronic record of votes to the paper audit tape. Mecklenburgs Board
refused to test the paper tapes against the electronic record, claiming that voting
machine paper jams had possibly damaged the audit tapes so severely that the tapes
could not be used as independent records for auditing.
As a substitute for checking the electronic vote file against the paper record, the Board
chose to conduct a review using a copy of the electronic record to check for accuracy of
the computer arithmetic, although the law requires tests of the fidelity and mathematical
accuracy of the vote recorded using the independent paper record. The county board
claimed that the State Board of Elections authorized use of electronic records in lieu of
paper, if paper jams merely occurred, even if the paper records were undamaged.
The Mecklenburg Board acted irresponsibly, inventing thin excuses to bypass the postelection audit using the voter-viewed paper trail. After my protest was filed, staff initiated
a search for instances of paper jams to blame for their failure to utilize the paper record
for approximately 12,000 votes in the two voting sites selected for sample audits. Staff
located one brief reference to a cleared jam on one of many machines in use. Based on
that reed-thin logic, they excused themselves from conducting the audit using the
required paper records, said Marilyn Marks, an election integrity activist. Marks
expressed her hope that the State Board will recognize the importance of post-election
audits, and require that Mecklenburg and other affected counties conduct the proper
sample audits prior to State Board certification of the election.
The appeal notes that the Mecklenburg Board asserted that all touchscreen voting
machine counties in the state used the same procedures to avoid a paper record audit
procedure. Marks has requested that the State Board determine if such allegations

regarding those thirty counties are accurate, and require that proper election audits are
performed before the state board certifies the election.
Marks raised the implications for recount candidates, stating, Recount candidates have
the right to test the touchscreen paper records of votes. However, when officials
declared the paper records unusable and unreliable for test counts, the recount
candidates rights to rely on those records becomes a tricky question.
The appeal also references the widespread public concerns about the security and
reliability of the election equipment in the 2016 election, prompting Marks to argue for
adherence to the verification processes in place in North Carolina.
A copy of the protest appeal is linked here.
For more information, please contact Marilyn Marks at Marilyn@AspenOffice.com or
970 404 2225.